The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Image Credit: www.EnglishCollective.org

Are your team members highly accountable?

Do they have a “Thank God It’s Monday” attitude?

Do they take tons of initiative?

If not, you’ve likely got Crushed Culture.

It’s a disease. And it’s going to become an epidemic if we don’t do something about it. Evidence: three companies I used to love now have Crushed Culture: Lenscrafters, Hilton hotels, and even (gasp) JetBlue.

It’s spreading.

According to the recent Gallup poll on employee engagement:

“Seventy-one percent of American workers are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive. This trend remained relatively stable throughout 2011.”

What? This trend has remained relatively stable. Wow.

Does this concern you?

A lot?

And don’t think Crushed Culture symptoms are in the rank and file alone.

“Our team is full of order takers.”

“Why do we have so little accountability around here?”

“We’re going through a lot of change. Why don’t our people embrace it?”

These are but a few of the most common complaints and concerns I often hear from the C Suite. And I’ve been listening for a long time—almost 30 years. Employee disengagement, or Crushed Culture, has spread to the C Suite too.

Four Steps to Cure Crushed Culture:

1) Emotional Equity > Financial Equity. We all know what financial equity is—money—stock, comp packages, golden handcuffs. All the things we think will make people loyal to a company and keep them engaged. But this no longer works, as Gallup proves, and especially with Millenials. Nope, they, like the rest of us, want to feel like we’re part of something bigger, like we’re on a glorious mission, like our work matters, like we’ll leave the world just a little better than we found it, and we want to achieve that (in part) during our work hours.

Here’s the formula:

Put energy into someone by explaining why your company is doing what it is doing, what your mission/vision/values really mean, mentor them, talk challenges out with them, pay attention to them and you’ll start to build emotional equity. That equity will now give you access to their heart, mind, Rolodex, idle thought cycles. Now they’re thinking about how to help the company innovate better, solve a specific problem, etc. as they shower and commute and whatever. That access to a person’s additional resources will enable you to influence outcomes more effectively. Now you have a shared cause, you’re on the same team, you’re safe and you belong together. It’s emotional.